Morgan Frost left Philadelphia with a whimper

The 2024-25 season was finally the year in which Morgan Frost left John Tortorella’s doghouse…but not because things magically changed for the better in Philadelphia. Frost – shipped out with Joel Farabee in the January trade that brought Jakob Pelletier and Andrei Kuzmenko (briefly) to Philadelphia – finished his season in Alberta with the Calgary Flames, and seemed to do much of the same things he did while in the city of Brotherly Love. 

But, for the purposes of this series, we’ll only look back on Frost’s time in Philadelphia this season, with a note on the overall Morgan Frost tenure with the Orange and Black. 

In Philadelphia, Frost’s statline this season was pacing around the 0.4 to 0.5 points per game that we became accustomed to, with a relatively high shooting percentage in his 49 games as a Flyer. 

Frost’s offensive output for the Flyers was pretty consistent on a month-to-month split. 5 points in 11 games in October, 5 in 10 in November, 7 in 13 in December, and 8 points in 15 in January. Yet again, for all the ire about Morgan Frost’s production during his time with Philadelphia, Frost produced around the same level that he always had for the Flyers – about a half point per game. 

Of course, point production doesn’t show the full story with Frost, and coming into the season there was still the important question of whether Frost can actually produce enough to crack a top-6. A half a point per game might do that, but only if Frost could create a positive impact defensively, off the puck, and as a key force on a power play. Well, while his play off the puck and defensively improved, Frost continued to just not do that enough, much to the continued criticism of former head coach John Tortorella. 

Much has been written about the fractured Frost-Tortorella relationship, but one thing to note about this past season is that it seemed to reach a point where Tortorella kinda gave up on Frost being an important player for this team. Torts simply sat Frost for a stretch of games in November, and there was not a fiery meeting between the two (like in January 2024), there was not an outburst to the media, and no real effect on the team’s already middling performances. While that might indicate a coach trying to show respect to one of his players, considering what we know about Torts, it might have just indicated that the writing was on the wall with Frost. 

Back to the numbers, Frost’s underlying numbers tell an interesting story. By pretty much every metric, Frost was a positive at best, break-even at worst play driver. The Flyers carried more than 54% of the expected goals when Frost was on the ice, with break-even shot attempts and high danger chances in Frost’s ice-time. Despite positive metrics, Frost was still on the ice for only 25 Flyers goals, and 32 goals against at even strength. That certainly did not bode well for Frost in the eyes of the coach or fanbase, even with the Flyers goaltending situation being a mess. 

By individual rate stats, Frost also was alright this season. Frost’s 1.7 points per 60 at even strength paced pretty well with 2023-24’s 1.77 points per 60, and the other metrics in the table below were right on par with the previous seasons of Frost’s career as well. All in all, not a bad half-season for a player that most teams would be expecting to be a scoring third-line center or wing. 

Finally, over his Flyers tenure, Frost just couldn’t avoid the crucial errors that made him stand out in a bad way. For all the flashy plays he had, no matter how consistent the other parts of his game became, there was always an embarrassing turnover or gaffe that was on the horizon. So that’s where we will leave it with Frost – one of the final blows to Morgan Frost’s Flyers career – an awful turnover vs Utah in December.  

Three Questions

Did they live up to expectations?

For Morgan Frost, this is a timeless, everlasting question. And the answer is always…no. And honestly, we think this is a proper time to think about whether those expectations were really ever all that fair. Morgan Frost, taken at 27th overall in 2017, turned into a 40-50 point a year, middle-six center. For a late first-rounder, that is typically seen as an acceptable, if not best case outcome for that pick. So, why didn’t Morgan Frost satisfy? Maybe it was his outrageously productive seasons with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds that raised our expectations, or the flashes of brilliance he showed in the NHL, but Frost ended up being a very productive player for what his draft slot indicated. This final half-season in Philadelphia was no different, and while Morgan Frost was given every chance to live up to our raised expectations of him, it’s hard not to wonder whether those expectations should have ever been raised in the first place. 

What can we expect from him next season?

We can only hope, and expect, that Morgan Frost is enjoying his time out there in Calgary. It was time to part ways in Philadelphia, and no matter your feelings on the player, Frost wasn’t given the fairest of deals here in the Orange and Black. Hopefully he finds his place in the Flames middle-six for years to come.